According to the Manila Times, on September 20, 42-year-old Manny Pacquiao announced his retirement, preparing to run for president of the Philippines on May 9, 2022.
However, a few hours later, the news fell into uncertainty, and his manager came out to deny it, saying that Pacquiao had not completely given up boxing and would only be officially retired if he announced on his personal social media.
Pacquiao said: "My boxing career is over. It's because I've been boxing for a long time and my family has been saying it's time to stop boxing, but I keep boxing because I'm passionate about the sport. ”
Pacquiao, the only eight-tier world champion in professional boxing history and a future Hall of Famer, lost to Ugas in a dismal unanimous verdict after playing 12 rounds a month ago.
Pacquiao said he will continue to be involved in the sport through his MP promotion company, which is responsible for the competition and promotion of WBO subweight champion John Riel Casimero, IBF flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas and featherweight mark Magsay. Pacquiao said: "I will only support the other boxers and let us win the championship again. ”
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that Pacquiao has announced his retirement before the campaign. When Pacquiao ran for the Philippine Senate in 2016, he announced that his third match with Timothy Bradley in April of that year would be the last of his career and would go all out in politics when elected.
Pacquiao eventually won the Senate with 16 million votes, but he did not keep his promise to return to the ring less than seven months later, winning the WBO mid-weight boxing belt with a 12-round point-and-shoot victory over Jessie Vargas.
However, a few hours after Pacquiao announced his retirement, Sean Gibbons, whose manager and CEO of the MP promotion company he founded, told ESPN that Pacquiao was considering his next career and had not fully retired.
Gibbons said: "In the coming weeks the senator will decide how he ends his career, and after the game Pacquiao started discussing whether he would retire or play another game, he just said something different. It's not until you announce your retirement on his Twitter or Instagram that it's official. Everything else was just him talking about what he was thinking now, it was all rumor. ”